Several years ago I read a book written by a Wall Street veteran who specialized in risk management and structured product design. This author argued (from his personal experience of over 30 years at major banks) that Wall Street firms will typical build structured products in such a way that the traders and analysts of the firm will understand it better than the client understands it. His central message was that through complexity, Wall Street regularly creates traded instruments in which they have the informational edge and are thus equipped to directly beat the ill-informed